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SKEIN, the Supply Chain and Operations Clubof IIM Udaipur in collaboration with State Bank of India successfully conducted The Supply Chain Summit’15, second edition of the annual Supply Chain Symposium on 14th February, 2015. The clubs and committees of IIMU give ample opportunities to its students to master the tapestry of learning and holistic development while getting hands on experience in organizing events. SKIEN’s constant endeavor remains imparting the students of IIMU the latest knowledge from the World of Supply Chain. It is an initiative to bring together Supply Chain enthusiasts from academia, the local community and industry alike and provide a platform where global leaders can share their opinions and views on supply chain through engagement in panel discussions and thus provide valuable insights to the students.

The event flagged off with an opening speech from Prof. Janat Shah – Director, IIMU who presented his vision for the institute with strong emphasis on research, analysis and entrepreneurship. The umbrella theme for this Supply Chain Summit 2015 was “From Apple to Apple – Supply Chain Transformation”, aptly developed around the global Supply Chain evolving activities and the prominent opportunities in the sector in future. The theme throws light on the transformation that took place from selling of apples in grocery stores to developing and implementing innovative supply chain technologies in companies such as Apple Inc.

The run-up to the event saw numerous online and on-campus competitions being held, with teams from the best B-schools across the country joining the event for battling their knowledge out in the arena in front of the judges.

The event saw two important panel discussions between eminent corporate leaders. The first panel discussion with the sub-theme, “Make in India: How Supply Chain can help achieve the Dream” had panelists Mr. Ajay Jhalani – Head Supply Chain (CHEP India Pvt. Ltd.) , Mr. Chandramohan Gupta – Director Supply Chain (Coca Cola – India and SW Asia), Mr. Shyamal Chatterjee – Head India Operations (Tupperware) , and Mr. Vinal Kabra -Global Supply Manager (Apple Inc., California). The vast experience these professionals had helped in an engaging and enriching discussion with various strata of Supply Chain management touched upon like Sustainability of Make in India, Importance of Analytics in the field of Supply Chain, protecting the margins in businesses, amalgamation of frontend and backend processes, and problems pertaining to warehousing and storage of food in India. The panel mentioned that roughly 12-14% of India’s GDP goes into logistics and similarly 80% of the price of the product also comprises of supply chain. They also threw light on the importance of new managers coming into the industry and the expectation from them. The speakers discussed about plethora of issues ranging from integration with suppliers, Squeezing of working capital & its profitability, Accurate Demand aggregation, and enhancement in Cold Chain infrastructure.

The second panel discussion revolved around the sub-theme, “E-Commerce in India: Competitive Advantage through Innovations in Supply Chain” with the panelists Mr. Hrishikesh Pore – Head Grocery Online (My247Market.com – A TATA Enterprise) , Mr. Navneet Rai – Co-founder (Tolexo) and Mr. Jayant Mahto – VP Operations (Firstcry.com). The panel discussed about how e-commerce has brought the once backend process of a business i.e supply chain to front end. They discussed the dilemma of maintaining a site that offers products both perishable and nonperishable products. The panel discussion was mainly interaction driven with students asking questions specifically related to e-commerce industry as well as companies that the panelists are representing. The panelists also discussed the benefits of e-commerce as compared to the traditional method of shopping offline.

The event ended with a felicitation of the speakers and a vote of thanks. The Supply Chain Summit’15 was a resounding success with speakers and participants alike, appreciating the seamless organization of the entire event and the insights they gained through the discussions.